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- We can only hope that a now-pulled post on a neocon website urging Bush to assume the role of “President-for-Life” was satire or the work of hackers. (Via.)
- Denise Ross points out that in part due to her recent vote on the government’s warrantless surveillance powers (discussed in a post earlier this week), has led some to view her not as a “Blue Dog” Democrat but a “core” member of the “Bush Dogs.”
- Moving from the political to the important, Corey Vilhauer chimes in on the latest poll on reading, noting, “With the onset of easy entertainment has come the onset of easy thinking.” Go read the rest — and not just because he said nice things about my post on the subject.
- You can tell Mary Garrigan has joined Mount Blogmore. The subject of her first post? A book. I am somewhat concerned in that that I would have thought Mary had more judgment than to join that crew in the blogosphere. But then again, she did marry Kevin. (The latter said with great affection for both.)
- During my trip back Friday, I gave in to my kids’ amazement that I had never used “shuffle” on my iPod. Having done so, I had to wonder about its randomness. Nearly 15 percent of the songs it played were from one CD box set, whose tunes make up only two percent of the 1600+ songs currently on the iPod. In addition, it played the song “Sandy” from a Springsteen live CD, immediately followed by that same song from a Springsteen collection. Of course, the latter may just be proof of how random randomness is.
- Based on my recollection of Catholicism and the political positions taken yet today by some fundamentalists and evangelicals, I don’t really see that this flowchart is all that medieval.
- To move from the snarky, NASA has reached an agreement with the Internet Archive to build an online space image archive.
- At first I wondered about the need for a science fiction awards watch but the first week reveals a number of awards I had not heard of before. (Via.)
In Catholic school
As vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me,
“Son, fear is the heart of love”
So I never went back
“I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” Death Cab for Cutie, Plans
This was initially simply an item amidst some forthcoming marginalia but the more I read, the more exasperated and offended I became.
David Newquist expresses the reaction I had on picking up the paper this morning and then catching up the whining, dismay and concern in the SD blogosphere (where the number of posts indicates PP is truly appalled, just appalled). The uproar? Sen. Tim Johnson, through his staff, evidently told the SD media it would be first when it came to interviews. But (OMG!!!!!!), Johnson has been interviewed — and more than once (multiples of OMG!!!!!!) — by Bob Woodruff of ABC. Shock. Disaster. Treachery. Damn near the end of the world as we know it!!!!!
I’m sorry, but a handful (if that many) of sporadic interviews on the topic of recovering from a brain injury conducted by someone who also suffered a traumatic brain injury stands in sharp contrast to the “we should have been first” attitude being expressed by the SD media and blogosphere. Woodruff is evidently focusing on brain injury and recovery. I’m far from an expert but it strikes me that talking occasionally with a fellow survivor of serious brain injury is probably recuperative and rehabilitative in and of itself. It also seems a greater public service piece with an impact far beyond South Dakota in contrast to what I have no doubt would have been “How you doing, how’s your recovery going, politics, politics, bullshit, shouldn’t you have talked to us before about how you’re doing, politics, politics, more politics, more bullshit and how are you doing, really” that would have come from any number of SD media.
Boo hoo is right. If the fact Johnson’s medical recovery will be detailed on ABC rather than in the local media is somehow viewed as contrary to open government or an attack on the SD press, then parochialism and the Lohan-Hilton school of journalism and government does rule the day. The SD media will have plenty of time for interviews and press conferences on issues far more wide ranging than what I presume Woodruff did and to ask about politics, current events and any other number of parochial items and also will undoubtedly and justifiably follow up Johnson’s health status and continue to do so.
But the fact Johnson didn’t give interviews to the SD media although he was talking to Woodruff doesn’t offend me, whether as a former journalist, a lifelong South Dakotan, a voter or just a member of the public. Even though I could never be called a Johnson lackey (and indicated to him directly the last time I saw him my dismay over a then-recent vote of his), my message to the SD media and blogosphere is simple: Get over it.
All this whinin’ and cryin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it
“Get Over It,” The Eagles, Hell Freezes Over
Coincident with our recent travel plans and the Armchair Traveler challenge (and my travel later today to Nebraska to help middle daughter move into her dorm), The Literary Saloon brought to my attention a list of The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time in the new issue of Condé Nast Traveler. The magazine also lists bookstores worth a trip but, sadly, none are in the cities we will be visiting next year.
I’ve read a few of the books on the list, compiled by 45 travel writers, but most of those I would not have necessarily considered “travel books.” The ones I’ve read are de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (!), The Long Walk, and Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between (one of my 2006 books of the year). Several others have been on my “I should pick that up someday” list for a while.
I should also point out National Geographic Traveler‘s Ultimate Travel Library. It is broken down by continent or region. It was, in fact, a source of some of the books I’m hoping to read in the Armchair Traveler challenge.
Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961
According to an AP article, a recent survey showed that a full 27 percent of adults in America read no books last year. The survey, which sadly is neither unusual nor surprising, contains a variety of interesting results. It’s worth looking at but here’s some of the core findings reported in the news article:
- “The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn’t read any, the usual number read was seven.”
- “There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.”
- “The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers.”
- “More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography.”
While the article focuses on the survey results, it also compares it prior surveys. I am also guessing the guy who is quoted saying, “I just get sleepy when I read” may regret being quoted — but given the poll results, maybe not.
Regardless of which survey you look at, my reading habits and consumption once more mean I am vastly outnumbered. Again, though, it’s a minority of which I’m proud. And for those who wonder how I manage to read as many books as I do: There is something called an “off” button on that mind-numbing device known as a television and the limited quality in that wasteland is easily perused in just a couple weekend hours with a recording device and fast forward button.
Just think of the wonderful impact on our youth and society if even half the hours “reality TV” is on in American households were devoted to reading.
Books are humanity in print.
Barbara Tuchman, The Book
- Here’s one that really drew my attention: an author has sued a blogger for a negative review of his book.
- Although I’m not familiar with most of the music he discusses, this week’s (if not this month’s) web “must read” is Andrew Waggoner’s thoughts about the loss of silence in modern life. The concluding sentence to one of his most insightful paragraphs: “In losing silence, and the corresponding potential for musical discernment that silence engenders, we lose ourselves, our native sense of our motion through life.” Go. Read. All of it. (Via.)
- Chapter 2 of things to read on the internet: Kudos to Todd Epp for his comments on immigration and diversity.
- Chapter 3: Another instance of agreeing with someone with whom I don’t agree. Greg Belfrage hits the mark in most of his post, Why I Loathe the SD Blogosphere. I do, though, like the concept of SDBWM.
- The Hugo Awards at last have an official site, just in time for this year’s WorldCon, at which the annual awards are announced.
- The Skepchick blog has an interesting discussion regarding a column in the latest Scientific American on “rational atheism.” (Via.)
- Earlier this year, the BBC gave a British science writer a list of what are apparently the most offensive swear words. The study upon which the list is based is available here. (Via.)
- Sam Houston notes a report that dozens of schools in the U.K. “refused to accept 300-book sets of the classics that the Millennium Library Trust has provided them free of charge. Why? Because the books are too boring and unattractive to ‘tempt’ their students.”
For us to be able to enter the world that music creates for us, we need a silence within which to listen.
Andrew Waggoner, “The Colonization of Silence“
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